[Airsoft ] a Useful Guide to Small Fireteam Tactics

I know what you're thinking, my friends. "Oh, another useless guide with stolen pictures and generic stuff."

Well today, I am bringing you something better. A useful guide to small fire-team tactics. Every single tactic on this list has been tested in combat by the Blazing Angels airsoft team. (Warrior Village summer season champions, thank you very much.)

So today we will look, in detail, at a few tactics to be used by the small fire-team.

But first, what IS the small fire-team? For the purposes of this guide, we're going to look at a standard 10-man team, and a fire-team size of 3 or 4.

Before you can even think about tactics, your fire-team needs synergy. This doesn't happen automatically, you'll go through several games as you build trust in eachother.

Learn to work as a team, work together to achieve a common goal.

Everything goes more smoothly when you play with people you know. It's just how we work.

Picture this scenario: Your 10-man team has split, sending a 3-man recon group to scout an objective base.

They radio in soon after. They made contact and exchanged fire briefly before pulling back. There are at least 5 enemies in the base, and possibly more moving around the outside. Frontal assault is suicide while they're watching a single front.

Time to break into a fire-team.

A fire-team, smaller than the main team, has superior mobility, stealth, and depending on the players, could even possess greater firepower than a squad. All this works to your advantage. The fire-team can use it's superior mobility and stealth to get into position on the flank of an enemy. But you still have the firepower needed to push if you need.

So you take a 3 man team, and while the rest of the team regroups for a frontal assault.

You use your smaller numbers to get around to the side of the base and begin to move in. Coordinated with the main squad, you three fan out and engage the base defenders. This creates a distraction, and the rest of your team engages the front of the base and after some intense combat, you take it.

Using a small fire-team as a diversion can be highly effective if you need to provide an opening elsewhere. Coordinate with the main group and maximize the effectiveness of your actions.

This honestly is one of the most basic maneuvers possible, but it's still important.

Force flows to the point of least resistance. As such, your friendly Squad would be silly to attempt and just rush in headlong. Therefore, you, the fire-team, should withdraw from the main element and come it from the side.

Again, coordinate with your team so when you move to flank an enemy the main squad can use the distraction to gain the initiative.

Sometimes called a battle-line, but the fire-line has some key differences.

In the days of old, a battle would commence after the two opposing forces lined up in neat little rows. Very pretty. And not completely impractical given you would be fighting with 3 foot long pieces of sharp metal.

But if your fire team were to line up in a single row, regardless of cover, you would be cut to pieces as fast as the enemy can shoot you.

Enter the fire-line.

Similar to setting up a perimeter, except along a single front.

Your team of 4-5 should spread out, preferably within eyesight so you can use hand signals if you are preparing for an ambush.

Form up along a rough line, but place yourselves where there is the most cover and most effective shooting locations. Staggered, some forward, and some to the rear, so you all have different arcs of fire.

This way, if you are assaulted, it's likely at least one or two of you will always have an angle from which you can land hits on your opponent.

The weakness of this is that you are extremely vulnerable to being flanked or hit from behind, if you aren't careful. This ideally is used when defending a base along a single front, with little threat from behind or flanks.

Yeah, I know, funny name. But this one works.

You know how leapfrog works. The person behind moves past the person in front, and then that repeats.

Use a similar tactic where one or two people push up, with the people behind them giving cover fire. Now, the people in front will give cover fire while the people behind push up to the front, and so on.

Make sure you're moving up to cover each time. Kinda important for staying alive.

Very useful when you need to move faster than you would carefully moving in a wedge or line, and risks as little as possible in the meantime.

Charge, rush, assault, whatever you call it. Moving ALL your people forward quickly to take out an objective when there's no time for clean cut maneuvers.

Disregarding what I said about direct assaults being unwise, back in Tactic #1, this is AIRSOFT, guys. A game. Sure, we want to be the best, and we can take stuff from military books and apply it.

But we're shooting plastic at each-other. Taking hits isn't a big deal (Except with that kid and his new CYMA AK-47 that shoots a hot 470 FPS out of the box. Don't be that guy, break the gun in so we don't all get hurt, I beg you.)

I've tested this tactic myself many a time (And been on the receiving end of it).

Charging your opponent full force can be a highly effective tactic if the enemy isn't a good player. Even then, it's difficult to hold your ground and shoot straight with someone charging and shouting while spraying full auto at you.

That being said, it's a risky tactic, use at your own risk.

To charge effectively, time it with an assault by friendly forces from a different direction, move from cover while firing, and maybe even shout a bit to disorient the enemy as much as possible.

Don't forget all this commotion might attract the attention of other forces roaming around that might come from behind while you're distracted.

Wedge formation is honestly difficult to use unless practiced, although when you get it right it's a powerful tool for moving through uncertain ground.

Make sure you space yourselves reasonably so you don't get taken out in a burst of fully automatic fire, and don't stray too far from cover.

While I apologize for the somewhat short tactics list, I did promise I'd only use what tactics my team has tested. And so I have. As I play more, and think of interesting things to try, I'll try and update this.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading!

Photo Credit:

Warrior Village Facebook Page,

Blazing Angels Facebook group